The U.S. Army is asking Congress for permission to add $251.8 million to the $3.5 billion allocated for the Future Combat Systems program this year.
The money, most of which would be shifted from within FCS and the Army's Research, Development, Test and Evaluation budget, would allow several components of the $160 billion program to arrive earlier, including 27-ton vehicles, sensors, UAVs, and network gear.
The request is contained in a March 21 Army document titled "Reprogramming Action – Future Combat Systems," submitted to Congress later in the month. It concerns the current 2008 budget.
Defense News obtained a copy.
Most of the money - $245.8 million - would come out of the research and development (R&D) budget, including $33 million from the Stryker Product Improvement Program. The rest of the funds, $6 million, would come out of the procurement account for Weapons and Tracked Combat Vehicles.
Last year, Congress cut $230 million out of the Army's FCS budget request as they prepared the 2008 budget. But around the same time, some key lawmakers, impressed during visits to FCS testers at Fort Bliss, Texas, asked the Army to look at speeding up delivery of some parts of the program.
The Army's March request aims to introduce some of the manned vehicles a year or two earlier, speed up delivery of networked sensors and UAVs, and field the first FCS brigade combat team in 2013, two years early.
But even $251.8 million may not be enough to accelerate everything the Army wants to speed up, an Army official said.
The document requests money for:
* Sustainment and training R&D, $94.6 million.
* Manned ground vehicles, $70.9 million.
* Unattended ground sensors, $22.3 million.
* Sustainment and training, $19 million.
* Non-Line-of-Sight Launch System, $19 million.
* Modular brigade improvement, $16 million.
* Reconnaissance UAVs, $7 million.
* System-of-systems engineering and program management, $1.4 million.
The Army's Future Combat Systems (FCS) program is ready to test a few components that soldiers may have in their hands by 2010.
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